Transient ranges

[Dicebot via Digitalmars-d]

On 06/03/2016 01:49 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 6/3/16 4:37 AM, Dicebot wrote:
>> Really, many of those issue would have been solved if basic input range
>> was defined as `empty` + `ElementType popFront()` instead.
> 
> FYI that was on the table, along with many other possible designs.
> (popFront() should be allowed to return by reference, too.) The problem
> with this one is that it is inefficient with arrays when the same
> element is accessed multiple times - the user is forced to create a copy
> or to use other contortions. Arrays are a prime use case for the range
> interface. -- Andrei

Has it actually been measured as inefficient? Ranges are very
inline/optimization friendly because of the templated nature of
algorithms - I would expect at least GDC/LDC to take advantage of that
for simple case and for more complicated ones mutiple evaluations of
`front` predicates will dominate performance gain from direct array access.

I guess I need to benchmark it myself and see :)